Previously on ModFab

Sunday, July 08, 2007

ModMusic: Marc Almond's "Stardom Road"

Among the queer legends of pop music, I'm not sure that Marc Almond has ever truly gotten his due. Known primarily in America as the guy who sang "Tainted Love" in the early 1980's, he was perhaps the first performer in rock history to discover mainstream success while living as an openly gay artist. (Something that can't be said of Elton, Freddie, Little Richard, or the Village People.) His music, which runs the gamut from dance to rock to orchestral, has always been theatrical; his worldwide hits include "Tears Run Rings", a cover of Jacques Brel's "Jacky", and the exquisite "My Hand Over My Heart" which, if there's any justice, will become a staple of (gay) wedding celebrations for decades to come.

After surviving a life-threatening motocycle crash in 2004, Almond's journey to recovery is complete. His comeback album, Stardom Road, is a collection of cover songs so unabashedly sentimental and showy that one can easily miss the indefatigable spirit at the record's core. Almond's honey-flavored voice transforms tracks like David Bowie's "The London Boys" into elegic memories; the cabaret standard "Strangers in the Night" charms with Almond's subversively diabolical subtext. The high points of the collection -- including "The Ballad of the Sad Young Men" (a duet with Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons), and an Almond original called "Redeem Me (Beauty Will Redeem The World)", are so moving that you'll be tempted to press repeat after each track (as I did). As always, Almond is an acquired taste, and his overwrought style won't be for everybody. But for those who can see the beating heart beneath the glitter, Stardom Road is a beautiful path to travel.